Someone commits acts of violence that become well-known to the public. Some uninformed person(s) transmit to the public the suggestion that bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) is to blame. Such is the case with pop star Chris Brown.

As a child, there was a phrase I had to say every day… ONE NATION UNDER GOD My kindergarten class says there is a God, but my parents don’t. Why should I recite this pledge? BECAUSE I SAID SO The principal says I must say it. Maybe he is wrong. YOU’RE A LOSER* IF YOU BELIEVE THAT I tried to trust God, but my friend died in a car accident. GOD MUST HAVE HAD A PLAN Then I do not care for God. FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD… Then why does he let innocent people die? HAVE FAITH Faith in what? A God I cannot see? A Bible I read and do not believe? ONE NATION UNDER GOD My nation sends troops to fight wars that make no sense. OUR GOVERNMENT WOULD NEVER DO THAT Where are the weapons of mass destruction? I CANNOT REVEAL MY SOURCES What? SUPPORT THE TROOPS I support the troops coming home and for all of them to stop supporting wars based on lies. THE TERRORISTS DID IT What terrorists are you talking about? I CANNOT REVEAL MY SOURCES Who can I trust?

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD...

I give up. Is there something you can tell me not connected to God or country?

"RAYMOND SHAW IS THE KINDEST, BRAVEST, WARMEST, MOST WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING I'VE EVER KNOWN IN MY LIFE."**---

*or a communist, a traitor, a conspiracy theorist, etc. **from The Manchurian Candidate, a movie based on the novel by Richard Condon

A Fan’s Folklore: Six Seasons of Triumph, Tragedy and Tough Luckby Dean T. HartwellThe book is out NOW - get it here!

I write about my favorite team, the Oakland Raiders of the mid-1970s. They are legendary to me and to the National Football League in which they played.I recount my favorite games, Raider wins and losses. My team is the protagonist in this folklore. Their nemesis, the Pittsburgh Steelers, play the role of the antagonists. Like the mythological character, Sisyphus, the Raiders climb up the hill every season toward the top, only to face the enemy who pushes them back down.Other events and players add to the legend. My feelings of guilt over a player who was paralyzed by a Raider. The death of a favorite baseball player at around the same time. A missed call that cost my favorite baseball team the World Series.

I realized that I was writing my own legend. Events in my own memory brought me to the point of writing this book.

My burdens in life include a kidnapping, a beating and institutionalization. I do not compare my problems to anyone else's. I simply claim them as my own.At first my experiences conquered me. They were like demons I could not understand or fight against.Then, thanks in part to writing "a Fan's Folklore," I came to understand my value as a person and the importance of looking forward. I started facing my demons and began competing against them as a football team would.The biggest victory is to feel genuinely good about oneself. You become your own legend.

My brain works when it wants to. That is probably the best way I can sum up what it is like to live with bipolar disorder, which is also known as manic-depression. My moods and my ability to think clearly go up and down a scale on a regular basis. On one side, represented by the number “1,” is the depression. On the other side, the “10,” is the mania. Most of the time, thanks to medication, I hover around the “5” or “normal” level. I get up, go to work, pay the bills and otherwise function in society. Until they see this message, I would guess that most people who know me do not know I have this disorder. Sometimes, though, sometimes in response to events in my life and sometimes without warning, the pendulum swings. When it swings, it usually swings toward the depression. My brain simply slows down. I cannot think clearly enough to deal with life’s issues. What is a “1” like? Not being able to go to work. Or going to work and staring at a computer screen all day. That happened to me years ago and fortunately I took advice to get help. What is a “10” like? The feeling of weightlessness. The feeling that I am in a dream and that there are no consequences to my actions. I don’t know if I have hit a “10” but I probably came somewhat close at city council some time ago. On an act of spontaneity, I went up to the microphone and said of the previous speaker, “A person has the right to speak but not the right to be heard,” quoting Hubert Humphrey. Right now I am around a “5” feeling good and hope that you are, too. I hope that I have educated you a little more about this mostly invisible disorder. I am putting a picture of a peace dove because real peace starts within us.

What if we stopped viewing society through the lens of right and wrong? 2+2=4 would still be correct. But getting it incorrectly would not be a matter of moral judgment. Neither would crime. What would be the basis of determining whether an act is a crime? We would still have on our books the prohibition of all actions that cause harm to another person or the other person’s property. The reason we have these laws is not about morality. The law defines the conduct by the circumstances. For example, taking another person’s life is sometimes prohibited and sometimes not. Killing soldiers from nations or from groups of people our nation has decided to target is legal. So is killing in self-defense. As is executing those who have been convicted of heinous crimes. But if the trier of facts determines that one has taken a life intentionally, then that person has broken the law. Instead of casting moral judgment upon the “suspect” or “defendant” we could, upon their arrest and charge, take them to an inquiry. A person with the proper legal and logical background (the inquirer) could ask this person and witnesses who volunteer to come forward what happened. After hearing the evidence and viewing any appropriate documents and visual aids, the inquirer would decide if the crime was actually committed. If they decide there was no crime, they allow the suspect to leave. If they decide there was a crime, they would designate the crime in a general manner (ex: “homicide” instead of “murder,” “assault” rather than “aggravated assault,” etc.) The results of the inquiry would be forwarded to a group of experts on psychological, social and other disorders. The suspect would choose one of the experts. The experts would ask questions of the suspect and others familiar with them and the people harmed by the conduct. They would then reach a majority consensus as to what problems the suspect had in their background that (a) contributed to their conduct and (b) could be addressed through some type of rehabilitation. They would also state the length of time, if any, the suspect should be detained and where detained and only do so if the person, from their point of view, would likely harm others or the property of others. As for constitutional concerns about the right to a jury trial, suspects would be given the choice of this type of process as an alternative to the usual judicial system. We may not be able to rehabilitate all of those who break the law, but we need to rehabilitate a system that casts blame rather than seeks solutions to one of our society’s biggest problems.

Why does a person buy a firearm, travel across the country and then shoot two guards at the Pentagon?

Because a man who recently did just that also died in the shooting, we may not get an answer to the question.But the national media came up with several guesses:

1)The man, John Patrick Bedell, was a skeptic of the official 9/11 theory (a “9/11 Truther”).

2)Bedell suffered from bipolar disorder.

3)Bedell used marijuana.

But what did any of these labels stuck to Bedell have to do with his use of violence?Millions of people in the United States and across the world tell booksellers, blogs and pollsters that they do not believe the official theory as to 9/11 that nineteen Arab suicide hijackers took over four planes and crashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.Yet no one who studies crime has stated any rise in crime among these truthers or any connection between believing in an alternative theory and using violence.

As for his apparently untreated mental illness, approximately 5.7 million people in our nation suffer from bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic-depressive illness.But this illness causes a person to drift from a depressive phase in which their brain slows down to a manic phase in which they become excited.In the first phase, a person with the disorder typically cannot concentrate well enough to plan harm to another and in the second phase, the person is too giddy with excitement to want to harm anyone.

And who has heard of marijuana use ever being linked to violence?No credible study supports this conclusion and it seems out of place here, as Bedell did not commit a crime with the intention of making money, as some drug users do in order to buy more drugs.

As the reporters of this crime, the media used labels not relevant to the incident.But now many of those who have heard the reports have likely wrongly concluded that the media guesses of 9/11 truth, bipolar disorder and marijuana contributed to Bedell’s intent to commit murder.

The unfortunate consequence of this labeling is that three groups of people will be stigmatized for something that they had nothing to do with.In a society where voters urge politicians to be “tough on crime” and where civil liberties have shrunk dramatically since the advent of the “War on Drugs” and the events of 9/11, false labeling will enable our government to scare decent citizens into hiding who they are for fear of being profiled.

We must stop our government from scapegoating anyone.This is how the Nazis got started and after they played upon the ignorance of their people, they succeeded in getting Germans to approve of the second-class citizenship and eventually the detention and murder of people in several groups: Jews, communists, the disabled, the gays, etc.

Cross-examine the reports about the Pentagon shooting and work toward a society where people are still innocent unless proven guilty.